Sunday, February 10, 2008

Some of you will remember that movie The Insider with that nancy-boy, Russell Crowe, (and Al Pacino) about Mississippi suing the tobacco industry. Our AG at the time, Mike (Michael) Moore played himself in the movie.

Anyhoo, this movie was about Jeffrey Wigand, played by Crowe, coming clean about a bunch of underhanded stuff being done by Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation. And the film was basically a recruiting video for the Democrat Party. All the big wheel money-men were involved. When the film came out, everybody in the world went, "Oooooooooooo." and big tobacco was finally thrown under the bus and the smoking Nazis rejoiced.

A little background on Wigand because that is important. Wigand worked for a few companies before he went to work for B&W, all before 1983. He worked for Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. He worked for Union Carbide. And he worked for some startup company that I cannot find any reference to other than he worked there and met his second wife there after divorcing his first after she contracted Multiple Sclerosis. Yeah, he was a really good guy. Couldn't hold a job and bailed on his committment after it became difficult.

Fast forward to today, and let's check in on the major players in that little scandal. Please keep in mind that all players here are Democrats. Every one.

The main player in this scenario was Mississippi's Attorney General, Mike Moore. He was the very first to launch a lawsuit against a company that conducted legitimate business, legally, in this country. When he first started the suit, our Governor Kurt Fordice, fought him tooth and nail, out of principal. Fordice was Republican and his mindset was that since the product was legal, Moore was overstepping his responsibilities.

Moore is a dumbass and knew that the suit was way over his capacity as an attorney, so he hired ambulance-chaser extradonaire, Dickie Scruggs, to take this case on. Dickie is the brother-in-law of Trent Lott (their wives are sisters), by the way. Dickie made his money by suing the asbestos industry. No, asbestos doesn't cause cancer. Check any source that you want, and you will find that information. He just made it seem that way in court, juries found for his clients because our juries are packed with stupid people, and now our brake-pads wear out in our cars in damn near a year.

Anyhoo, Dickie took the case on a percentage based fee, just like pretty much every case that he takes on. He is a class-action suit lawyer. And he raked in the jack on this one. HERE's the settlement. It is thirty-four point five billion dollars over six years, then eight billion every year thereafter. Dickie got PAID to the tune of never having to work another day in his life.

Fast forward to today. Dickie is currently under indictment for attempting to bribe a judge ruling in a case concerning his legal fees in the suing of the insurance companies after Hurricane Katrina. Mississppi's new AG Jim Hood, hired Dickie's firm to pursue the money for the hurricane victims. (read "hurricane victims" as the Democrat Party of the state of Mississippi) Dickie hired more of his Democrat brethren to help him bilk the insurance companies and when the settlement came rolling in, Dickie just refused to pay those attorneys their twenty-five million in fess. HE got sued and tried to pay off the judge to rule in his favor. He got "hisself" busted.

Aside: the consulting attorneys got paid twenty-five million dollars, what do you think that Dickie got paid? I have never seen that figure, but you know what the fees would have been had the state AG Jim Hood simply done his job instead of farming that work out to his buddies? Nothing. All of the "winnings" would have gone to the home owners, instead, those "winnings" went to a bunch of lawyers that live in North Mississippi, not to the recovery effort. Way to go, Democrats! Party of the little guy, my big ol' butt.

Furthermore, embroiled in this scandal comes three more Democrat judges in the State of Mississippi. The main is Bobby DeLaughter who's claim to fame is that he brought charges against Byron de la Beckwith in the murder of Medgar Evers. Yes, another movie was made about that case, too. Ghosts of Mississippi. James Woods, Alec Baldwin (played DeLaughter), Whoopi Goldberg. Need I say anything else?

And others got busted, too. Former State Auditor Jim Patterson (Democrat) has already pled guilty and has basically agreed to deliver Dickie's head on a silver platter. Does anyone know how that will work out? Patterson and Scruggs will work a deal on the sly and cover for each other. Everyone is happy AND corrupt.

Not to completely say that it is all Democrats, oddly enough, three days before the indictment, Trent Lott announced his retirement from the Senate. Weird timing, y'all. I am most definitely not saying that Trent has anything to do with his sleazy brother-in-law being a crook, but it just doesn't look right to me.

Now, all the Democrat elected officials in our state are screaming that this PROVES that from this point forward we need to appoint judges. Even that moron hack writer, John Grisham has even said his piece. Can anyone tell me how anyone could make this assertion? It seems to me that it makes the complete opposite even more true. We must always ELECT our judges because all politicians if given the chance are going to screw us over.

And finally, guess who was going to host the Mississippi fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign? Guess who is the biggest contributor to the Democrat Party in the state of Mississippi? Guess who spent bunches and bunches of money to make sure our that our last State Insurance Commissioner (Democrat by the way) was not reelected?

Yep, none other than Dickie Scruggs, the criminal.

(None of these guys are Black. For some reason, it seems that our Black politicians are not criminals. Yay! Mississippi Black politicians. Oh, but they are really stupid anyway, they ARE politicians.)

UPDATE: I sometimes forget that my articles are written in my head and they come out that way a bunch of the time. I would probably make an attempt to write more gooder if I actually thought that anyone was really reading this blog. Marryingman left a comment calling me out on the "asbestos not causing cancer" statement that I made and I would like to clarify that a bit by saying, NO, asbestos does not cause cancer, PERIOD. There is an elevated risk for some people to contract Mesothelioma when exposed to asbestos AND/OR related materials in confined quarters, WHEN INHALED.

Asbestos is a natural mineral that in most of the Eastern states is actually in our drinking water, because it has been determined to be safe in that form. Furthermore, unleaded gasoline causes all kinds of bad stuff to happen to any living creature when inhaled in quantity, do we want to outlaw gasoline? Hell, no, because the effects would be devastating, but to Dickie, doing away with asbestos was a risk that he was willing to take to get wealthy, so he did it. And I add that many people have died from that. The best numbers that I have for Mesothelioma deaths is 10,000. Forever. We cannot even quantify how many people have died from fire because asbestos is no longer used in fireproofing, I would guess that it is much, much greater than 10,000, though. Around three thousand in the World Trade Center would be a start. I would appreciate it greatly if the families of those killed in WTC would sue Dickie Scruggs for taking away that asbestos.

All that said, let me say this, anything inhaled other than air can do irreparable damage to your respiratory system because we, as humans, are designed by something (scientists have no idea what that something is yet, maybe Joe-6-Pack or whatever name he goes by now can tell us) to breathe AIR, not anything else.

Asbestos got a bum rap in Dickie Scruggs's (plural possessive!) lawsuit and probably cost some folks in the World Trade Center their lives. Yes, the asbestos fireproofing that would have slowed the melting of the steel was abated (indirectly) because of Dickie's lawsuit. You see, our Congress passed bad law, like they always do, when something showed up where a bunch of lawyers could make a bunch of money. Yes, our Congress is a bunch of lawyers.

I do not know anyone that has contracted Mesothelioma, but I would be relatively sure in saying that it would be terrible. Cancer is never a good thing. And rest in peace, Steve McQueen, you are missed.